Poetry in motion

Poetry in Motion

After my success with reading Holes to the Grade 12 learners, I was looking for something I could share with the Grade 11 classes that I only teach once a week. We had been talking about ideas of culture; for many of the students, culture consists to a great extent of traditions. Traditions are vivid and palpable for the learners in this very “multi-cultural” school, exemplified virtually every minute of every day by the palette of languages they switch between to communicate with each other. We’d had some discussions about whether traditions were the territory of elders and grandparents (on the whole, yes), and whether culture was static (after some discussion, maybe not.)

I had been reading my Mother’s Day gift from Sayce, Tony, and Petey – Billy Collins’ book of poetry entitled horoscopes for the dead - and for some reason this poem somehow struck me as a possibility for the Grade 11’s:

Simple Arithmetic

I spend a little time nearly every day

on a gray wooden dock

on the edge of a wide lake, thinly curtained by reeds.

And if there is nothing on my mind

but the motion of the wavelets

and the high shape-shifting of the clouds,

I look out at the whole picture

and divide the scene into what was here

five hundred years ago and what was not.

Then I subtract all that was not here

and multiply everything that was by ten,

so when my calculations are complete,

all that remains is water and sky,

the dry sound of wind in the reeds,

and the unflappable heron on the shore.

All the houses are gone, and the boats

as well as the hedges and the walls,

and the curving brick paths, and the distant siren.

The plane crossing the sky is no more

and the same goes for the swimming pools,

and the furniture and the pastel umbrellas on the decks,

And the binoculars around my neck are also gone,

and so is the little painted dock itself –

according to my figuring –

and gone are my notebook and my pencil

and there I go, too

erased by my own eraser and blown like shavings off the page.

The students seemed fascinated by the novelty of an entire book of poems, especially one that seems to be talking about predictions (one of our “prefix” words) for dead people. But as I start to read, even the little shufflings and chair-scrapings that perpetually populate the room cease, and I realize that virtually every eye is following me as I slowly walk the room, pronouncing each line very deliberately. When I finish, the silence continues and I have a moment of panic. This is a almost unprecedented – silence doesn’t come easily to these students. Were there too many words or images they didn’t understand? Have I offended somehow? Did it just bore them into somnolence??

But then hands start to inch into the air. This, too, is unprecedented – raising hands to be acknowledged, while a skill encouraged by the Namibian teachers, seems to be an awkward motion to many. When I point at Saul and nod, he rises slowly and says, “Miss, would you read it again?” As I smile in relief and signal “yes,” all of the other hands subside - I can’t help but think “ like the motion of the wavelets.”

This time they look eager, some even leaning towards me and turning as I move around the room. When I finish, I put a few words on the board.

We talk, first, about the things they know – the dry sounds of wind in the reeds (there are many at the Omaruru riverside), how clouds shift their shapes, about subtracting and multiplying and dividing, about hedges and, of course, about sirens.

Then we talk about how reeds can “curtain” something, about docks and herons (they love me standing on one leg), and try to find examples, in a room full of uniform navy and white and grey, of what colors “pastel” could possibly be (mostly on me.)

Now they are nodding and talking to each other, some even writing down a word or two in exercise books. I start to say “Should I….” and before I even finish, there is a loud chorus of “Yes, Miss!”

As I read this time they are clearly with me; a few have their eyes closed, several look at the blackboard as I say something we’ve talked about, and some are murmuring a word or two with me as I come to a line they remember. This time, when I get to the last lines about erasing, I mime writing with a pencil and blowing the eraser dust off the page.

When I look up, they are all looking at me expectantly. Expecting what, I have no idea – maybe to read it yet again. Sakaria raises his hand and says, “Miss, you must write this for me.” (The “you must” construction in Namibian English is really more equivalent to “would you please” and we have had to get used to the imperative from these requests seem to take.) Knowing that the end-of-period bell is about to sound, I promise to make copies for all, but ask them to write a “response” before they go.

The students seem completely puzzled by my request. I’m internally guessing that “response” is probably familiar to them as an answer to a “letter of complaint,” which they have been working on as one of their writing tasks for upcoming exams. Their enthusiasm has been replaced by questioning looks. Anxious not to lose the momentum we seemed to have built, I write a few prompts on the board: “When I heard this poem, I felt….” Or “The poem “Simple Arithmetic” made me think….”

Here are some of their reactions:

“I feel very good and somehow bad when I am reading this poem. Bad because the tradition is fading away and the men as well.

"When I hear the poem “Simple Arithmetic” I think of how perfect it was in the past. The silent and natural sounds of life, the wide open space on the land. I feel like being there without any noise and disturpence. "

"I feel so happy after listening to this wonder poem. I am one person who does not like poems but I loved this one. Especially the part “the plane crossing the sky is not more and the same goes for the swimming pools, the furniture and the pastel umbrellas.”

"The poem “Simple Arithmetic” made me feel empty because the words used are very lonely which take all the attention of a person. You mood, it even describe the nice sentences."

"This poem just draws my attention nearer. I even like this part “erased by my own eraser and blown like shavings off the page.”

"This poem makes me think about home, how I would be living without the intervision of my tradition, without having to worry about eating from a pot, sweeping out the house at night or having to marry without notification of my elders.”

"When I hear this poem I feel like in that person. The person takes all my attention just having the words said if there is nothing on my mind but the motion of the wavelets and the high shape shifting of the clouds. And the last paragraph of the poem is more heart-broken, it’s a great poem I ever hear. "

I wish I could write a poem to Billy Collins and tell him what a profound effect he had on this group of Namibian students.